06.03.2014

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Labour: Unions vote to be distanced

Delegate Charles Gradnitzer reports on Labour’s special conference

As
readers will know, the Labour Party endorsed the Collins review at
its special conference held in London on March 1. Collins requires
trade unionists to “opt in” to become second-tier members of the
Labour Party, introduces ‘one member, one vote’ for elections of
the party leader, imposes primaries for the selection of the
candidate for London mayor against the wishes of London Labour and
requires “registered supporters” to pay a fee for the privilege.1

Nobody
expected conference to be anything other than a rubber-stamping
exercise to give the ‘reforms’ a democratic veneer. The
apparatchiks of the Labour Party are such experts in stage-management
and stitch-ups, they could make a lucrative career teaching theatre
and haberdashery.

In
the run-up to conference delegates received numerous letters from Ed
Miliband urging us to vote for the reforms. One such letter told the
story of Paul, a lifelong trade unionist and figment of Miliband’s
imagination, who finally joined the Labour Party after the reforms
were announced - on the basis that “until now the party never felt
democratic. It never felt like one I could join.” This anecdotal
approach was commonplace throughout the entire affair.

One
encouraging development before the conference had been the February
Young Labour conference, which had narrowly voted to reject Collins.
This came as a surprise to many, as Labour Students has often been
dominated by rightwing careerists, and prompted Labour Party
headquarters to issue a statement explaining that “some people may
find change difficult to accept”.2

But
there was no chance of that being repeated on March 1, despite the
opposition of several groups which turned up outside the Excel
Centre. Labour Party Marxists was amongst them, distributing our
special bulletin.3
The
Campaign for Labour Party Democracy had produced its usual Yellow
Pages,4
which
comrades from the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Labour
Representation Committee and Socialist Appeal were helping to
distribute.

Surprisingly,
a small contingent from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
was also opposing the reforms. In a rather surreal scene the comrades
- no doubt members of the Socialist Party in England and Wales -
followed Ed Miliband in their dust masks, shouting, “Don’t let
Labour silence the unions”, as he arrived.5

Inside
the hall Miliband used his opening speech to attack the Conservative
Party as a bunch of “out-of-touch toffs” and joked feebly that
the Liberal Democrats would have their next conference in Nick
Clegg’s local garden centre or a telephone box.6
And
there were more of those anecdotes. We were told about Tracey, a
union member and mother of three who had not voted in 20 years. She
feels as though politics does not speak to her. Assuming she is not
another figment of Miliband’s imagination or a product of his PR
team, it was unclear exactly how these reforms were going to convince
“Tracey” to vote for the party, let alone join it.

What
his speech lacked was any logic or reason bridging the chasm between
his truisms and the reforms he was asking us to vote for. It is
perfectly true, for example, that movements change things and that it
was the labour movement that won workers’ rights at the beginning
of the 20th century, but it was not explained how completely ending
collective affiliation or imposing primaries for the London mayoral
selection would build on those achievements.

But,
of course, making Labour part of a vibrant mass movement is the last
thing Miliband wants to do. And his nod in the direction of the
party’s reformist past was at odds with his assertion that he found
support for nationalisation “worrying”. Even though polls show
70% support for renationalisation of the utility companies and the
railways7
and
such a policy was passed unanimously at the 2013 Labour conference,
it is clear that, in a tradition stretching back to the 1924 Ramsay
MacDonald government, this policy will be ignored by the
parliamentary party on the ostensible grounds that Labour needs to
show that it is “fit to govern”.8

Fair
and balanced

When
Miliband had finished, a point of order was raised by a CLPD
supporter - who was booed and jeered, as she walked up to the rostrum
- presumably for exercising her basic democratic right. She asked why
there had been no conference arrangements committee report and what
had happened to the emergency motions that had been submitted by
several CLPs calling for the review to be taken in parts.9

Angela
Eagle replied from the chair to the effect that the CAC had met in
January, and immediately asked, “Can we please move on?” - to the
enthusiastic applause of many. Clearly if the CAC met in January,
then it would not have been able to consider submitted motions or
actually do any arranging, as the Collins review was not published
till February.

Speakers
were called in rounds of three and the first six were all in favour
of Collins. Their speeches were obviously well rehearsed and followed
the same disjointed, truism-cum-‘support the reforms’ pattern of
Miliband’s speech.

Several
union general secretaries walked up to the rostrum to urge delegates
to vote in favour. They included Paul Kenny (GMB), who not eight
months ago had opposed the reforms on the Today
programme.10
He
was followed by Dave Prentis (Unison), Len McCluskey (Unite), John
Hannett (Usdaw) and Tosh McDonald (Aslef), who all praised Miliband
and called for a Labour victory in 2015.

Eventually
Angela Eagle asked those opposed to the reforms to indicate if they
wanted to speak, but, despite her promise of a balanced debate and
the comparatively large number who had indicated, only six out of 27
people called from the floor were opposed to the review. They
included Pete Firmin, political secretary of the Labour
Representation Committee, who has written a report of the conference
for the LRC website,11
and
Dame Margaret Beckett.

Steve
Brown argued that the way to win mass support for the Labour Party
was through having “good policies”, such as renationalisation,
while Richard Johnson said that the move to an opt-in system could
lead to a £7 million shortfall in party funding, which could only be
mitigated by state funding and so would be unpopular with the
electorate.

When
it came to the vote, 96% of the affiliates (mainly trade unions) and
74% of the Constituency Labour Parties voted in favour of the
reforms, giving a total of 86.29% in favour and 13.71% against.

The
closing speech was delivered by Leicester South MP Jon Ashworth, who
congratulated Angela Eagle on her “fair and balanced” chairing.
Though laughable, this was hardly surprising, coming from a man who
was once national secretary of Labour Students.

Reclaim
the unions

The
opt-in system was originally introduced by the Tories in the 1927
Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act in order to damage the Labour
Party and was finally repealed in 1945 by the Attlee government. It
resulted in an 18% decrease in party funding.12
Which
begs the question: is the Labour Party committing financial suicide?
The answer to that perhaps lies in the timetable.

The
Collins review establishes an implementation group to oversee the
reforms. The timetable given for the transition from ‘opt-out’ to
‘opt-in’ for the unions is five years - well after the next
general election. However, if in 2015 Labour is unable to secure
state funding for political parties by forming a government either
alone or in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who also support
state funding,13
then
the whole thing could be dropped.

The
other question is, why did the unions overwhelmingly vote to end
collective affiliation? Christine Shawcroft, in her report of the
national executive meeting that endorsed Collins, said: “I believe
that several trade union delegates opposed the report, but felt that
they were in a difficult position: as their general secretaries had
negotiated the proposals, they didn’t feel they were able to vote
against.”

The
union bureaucrats were always going to come to a compromise. They
were never going to vote against. This is hardly in the interests of
their members, as collective affiliation represented a progressive
gain for the working class. Those arguing for Collins championed
liberal individualism over collective decision-making. But, once a
democratic decision has been made by a collective organisation -
whether to collectively affiliate to a political party or vote for
industrial action - there should be no right for individuals to opt
out: ie, to scab, either politically or economically.

In
an article entitled ‘Labour has betrayed its roots by distancing
itself from the unions’14
Bianca
Todd of Left Unity has argued that Labour is no longer the party that
reflects trade union values, the party of people like her father, Ron
Todd, the former general secretary of the Transport and General
Workers Union. Since it is now hopeless trying to “reclaim” the
Labour Party, disenchanted members should join Left Unity instead.

Leaving
aside the fact that the trade unions themselves block-voted for
Labour to ‘distance itself’ from them, when has the party ever
‘reflected trade union values’, let alone acted in the class
interests of workers? It was precisely because the Labour Party
sought to become a respectable party of government, to demonstrate
that it was “fit to govern”, that it has repeatedly “betrayed”
the working class. Because it sought to manage capitalism (allegedly
in the interests of the working class), it had no option but to
behave in that way.

So
the idea that a Labour Party mark two would behave differently is
absurd - not that LU has any hope of becoming one. Left-of-Labour
electoral projects come and go, but have never offered a real
alternative; they merely promise the same thing - a ‘fairer’
capitalism, thanks to sensible Keynesian management. But how that
will happen without Labour’s established voter base and trade union
backing is anyone’s guess.

The
Labour Party can be neither ‘reclaimed’ - it was never ours - nor
sidestepped. Yes, it is possible for the union leaders to demand
policies in the interests of their members, but that assumes that
those leaders are accountable to their members in the first place. By
winning control of our own organisations - first and foremost the
unions - we could hope to transform Labour into a different sort of
party. But the Labour question must be confronted head on; we cannot
wish it away.